Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has insisted he is not “super-rich,” despite reports that he can earn more than nine times the average British annual salary in a single day.

The ex-Labour leader
downplayed his wealth in an interview with Newsweek magazine
published Thursday.

Multimillionaire Blair claimed to be “very lucky,”
insisting his wealth contributes to the “infrastructure”
around him.

Newsweek’s interview was published a day after Blair officially
endorsed current Labour leader Ed Miliband’s general election
campaign.

Blair called a press conference in his old constituency in County
Durham to praise Miliband’s “real leadership on the EU”
and warned against Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to
hold a referendum on EU membership in 2017.

He told Newsweek: “Am I better off than most people? Yeah,
I'm very lucky. Am I in the league of the super-rich? Absolutely
not, though you will have to make up your own mind about
that.”

Blair is notoriously guarded about his wealth, which some
estimate totals more than £100 million.

It is reported the
former prime minister charges £250,000 for public speaking
appearances – more than nine times the average UK annual
salary.

Eyebrows were raised across the political spectrum last month
when the former PM announced he was donating £106,000 to Labour’s
election campaign.

Blair handed £1,000 to each of the candidates in Labour’s 106
“must-win” seats, despite controversy over his highly
lucrative work for authoritarian governments.

Lesley Brennan, a Labour candidate in the Scottish swing seat of
Dundee East, said on Twitter she had chosen to reject the
donation on “instinct.”

Rhodri Glyn Thomas, a Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh Assembly
described the donations as “blood money.”

He told the Daily Mail that Blair had worked for “for
multinational energy companies who have rigged the energy market
created by his Labour government resulting in inflated energy
costs for consumers, and global dictators guilty of human rights
abuses.”

The former PM’s consultancy firm, Tony Blair Associates,
reportedly earns £7 million a year for advising Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Nazarbayev’s government was accused of human rights abuses after
his riot police massacred dozens of striking oil workers taking
part in a peaceful protest in Zhanaozen, western Kazakhstan, in
December 2011.

Tony Blair Associates has also been linked to a Saudi Arabian oil
company founded by the son of Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah.